2.4 Typical weaponry will be useless against Thargoids. Another design flaw?

[S3B4ST13N]

Thargoid hunting = optional 'elite DANGEROUS' PVE. Those that wanted the NCP nerf in prior updates and revel in shooting fish in a barrel would do well to stay clear. I personally look forward to seeing how tough the thargoids will be and if I need to grind out new weapons - so be it. Just make damn sure the mats to do so are attainable and not bugged please.

I'm hoping for large-scale organised CG's, where players musty invade Thargoid installations around the outskirts of the bubble; scanning ships, collecting materials and data and bringing them back to a station nearby builds up the CG requirements.

The level of Tier completed before the end of the CG determines what technologies humanity is able to reverse-engineer and start selling.
Eg:
Tier 1 - Upgraded Weapons ( designed for shield and hull penetration of Thargoid vessels )
Tier 2 - Upgraded Shields and Hull Improvements ( designed for increased survivability against Thargoid weapons )
Tier 3 - New Utility/Optional Internal technologies ( Hyperdiction Inhibitors, Prison Cabins for scooping Thargoids out of space )
Tier 4 - Upgraded Core Internals ( upgrades to core, thrusters, FSD, sensors )
Tier 5 - Advanced Weapons ( reverse engineering of Thargoid defenses introduces weapons designed for the obliteration of Thargoid ships )
Tier 6 - Advanced Shields ( new shield designs, giving a Cmdr a true fighting chance against Thargoid vessels )
Tier 7 - Advanced Core Internals ( new Core Internals for handling the power outs required for the new Weapons/Shields )
Tier 8 - Anti-Thargoid Ship ( a small range of ships designed specifically to counter the Thargoid threat; powerful and expensive, Anti-Thargoid Ships represent the pinnacle of human engineering )

*imagination runs wild*

 

[DustyArne]

[Sarcasm]Greetings Commanders!

We here at Frontier Developments have heard your opinions and have decided to introduce a new feature.

Thargoid ships will now automatically self destruct the moment your shields drop below 90%.

Will will of course continue to monitor the situation and may raise this threshold based on player feedback. [/sarcasm]

Right on!

Added some sarcasm quote marks... i mean, we dont want to think you might be a developer right? cus, that's obviously not the case.. since, you don't have a Dev banner...

 

[S3B4ST13N]

Added some sarcasm quote marks... i mean, we dont want to think you might be a developer right? cus, that's obviously not the case.. since, you don't have a Dev banner...

Maybe he's in disguise and trying to sow dissension amongst the ranks?

 

[Morbad]

Your response to my post you quoted gave the impression (to me) that it's not plausible for the Thargoid's to be so superior to us that our weapons are nothing short off ineffective against them without it being surreal; I pointed out that they are already superior to us and has been established as such.

It's not plausible for there to be anti-Thargoid weaponry that isn't also vastly superior against the human threats we already face.

Unless Thargoids magically play by different laws of nature (which should be an absolute last resort when one needs to depict the fantastic), or have made some impossibly lame oversight (like War of the Worlds, where the super advanced Martians have nigh-impenetrable armored vehiles and heat rays powerful enough to incinerate people, but somehow don't have a germ theory of disease and didn't foresee the need for basic precautions in this regard), most anything that can damage their ships effectively should be even better weapons against ourselves.

A confrontation with a superior force should lead either to a swift and crushing defeat (quite boring, in a gameplay sense, if inevitable) or to asymmetric warfare with unconventional tactics...not spontaneous developments to facilitate open battle, especially if those developments are arbitrarily limited in their effectiveness to only that foe.

Basically, I'm fine with superior Thargoids as long as the nature of that superiority and the response to it at least tries to be rational.

 

[Shadowdancer]

["Oh no, I heard a sentence and can deduce the entire game mechanics of an upcoming major update!", ed.]

↑ Fixed that for you.

 

[The Chairmaker]

Lave Radio the other week commented that a source at Lavecon had indicated that Thargoid ships will be able to 2 shot kill any A rated human vessel.

Hence its likely that it will become very dangerous to hang around that UA bubble without a suitably modified ship.

I like to think of it as a bit like Babylon 5 whereby if you saw a Shadow battlecrab it was the last thing you ever saw, as they didnt miss and a single shot was basically an instant kill.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

Hmmm, does someone have a link to that "Teaser livestream" footage OP wrote about?

(I scanned through yesterday's Canonn livestream, but saw nothing new or unusual ? )

 

[Brrokk]

I'm hoping there will be special weaponry or equipment for use against Thargoids. It would mean more decisions about ship outfitting depending on intended activity, not a design flaw.

 

[Uvelius Sång]

It would be time to introduce a Custom Ship Build Template then. Outfit your ship, save this loadout, then change teh loadout to whatever is reuired, and when the need arises, just load the saved loadout to re-equip your ship. Modules not available yould just be highlighted.

Would be perfect for multirole players, like Explorers/Bounty Hunters and such.

 

[CMDR MERANGO]

We only need a few well aimed spludge guns loaded with 50% Deet, and then some cannon ball shot laced with 100% Deet. That'll do the trick - aye.

CMIV

 

[Fenris Wolf]

Compared to Thargoids, we're the Cavemen, with weapons to match.

Its up to us to make better rocks and sticks. That won't happen overnight.

Well said TheSisko.

Roll on the CGs for weapons development, scooping up bits of Thargoid ships for research in to their technology and weaknesses...

Perhaps even reverse engineered Guardian technology becoming available...


So instead of moaning about supposed design flaws, you (fus roh potato) should be looking at the possible options for new content and game development instead

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Watching over the teaser live stream, some pictures were shown of unknown devices coming in 2.4. Some of them seem to look like deployables rather than weapons and it prompts me with some concerning questions:

Is the 2.4 going to continue the trend of splitting game content? Will it make it easier for PvPers to attack ships equipped for fighting Thargoids? Will it force players to drop every other form of progression purely for the sake of some kind of Thargoid module progress? Deployables sound a bit more interesting because it allows a ship to maintain its previously engineered configuration, but I think it would be a shame if all that work put into engineering them could not be used at all in any way. My hope would be that these deployables put a debuff on the alien ships making engineered weapons useful, and that this update will create new relationships with other mechanics that we already have.

It's often said that this game is a mile wide and inch deep. A major contributor towards this was making progression systems feel like a grind. One way of achieving that was the practice of isolating activities and mechanics from each other so that only one at a time can be played with. Some examples:

• Waiting hours for that one particular kind of signal source when no other form of gameplay fits between, other than maybe courier missions which aren't really activities anyways.
• Grinding for 10k merits for a week to get a 100% bounty bonus for another week, when 2 weeks of bounties without a bonus pay the same. Neither of which contribute towards super faction rep gain.
• Waiting 4 weeks to earn a new weapon, one that's only given through Powerplay. Why?
• PvP only being for the sake of PvP.
• Manual trading, combat zones and mining not providing contribution towards any significant rank gain, engineering progress, and are not profitable without missions that don't add anything extra to the task itself.

I could probably make a fat list on that subject but that isn't the point. It sounds like Frontier is showing interest with revisiting core mechanics after 2.4, but I want to know if they've considered previous design flaws and taken measure to ensure 2.4 makes the game less wide and more deep. I think this is something they should be thinking about with every update they plan in the future.

Live stream reference.
[video]https://www.twitch.tv/videos/154072893?t=07m57s[/url]

Is it out already, or do you have a preview copy of how it will work?

I will wait until it is released before I pass judgement personally, like I have with all the other updates.

 

[TheSisko]

However, if new weapons simply show up when 2.4 drops, or after a few weekend CGs, that is happening overnight.

Remember that 2.4 isn't going to drop all at once, it will be a staggered release in order to fit FD's Thargoid invasion narrative. If 2.4 has 4 chapters to it, then I don't expect anti-Thargoid weapons to be available in Chapter 1.

What makes me curious is the logical end to this. Cavemen in that scenario have the choice of being wiped out or advancing their ability to resist but would be extremely unlikely to pull off the latter.

Once this whole thing kicks off, what will be keeping us alive? And where will the tech come from that will save us?

What keeps us alive? Maybe they need something from us. Maybe their goals aren't as simple as killing all humans. Maybe all Thargoids don't want to kill us. Only FD know for sure.

As for the Tech, I think that's been found already, or at least the components for that tech to be engineered into weaponry - why else would FD have all those Unknown Tech Samples, Residue, and all that Unknown Data available within Thargoid bases? Not to mention the reaction of Ancient Relics when inserted into the Unknown Device, along with the Patten Data available at Ancient Ruins.

All that stuff has to be used for something eventually, right?

 

[S3B4ST13N]

What keeps us alive? Maybe they need something from us. Maybe their goals aren't as simple as killing all humans. Maybe all Thargoids don't want to kill us. Only FD know for sure.

As for the Tech, I think that's been found already, or at least the components for that tech to be engineered into weaponry - why else would FD have all those Unknown Tech Samples, Residue, and all that Unknown Data available within Thargoid bases? Not to mention the reaction of Ancient Relics when inserted into the Unknown Device, along with the Patten Data available at Ancient Ruins.

All that stuff has to be used for something eventually, right?

There's speculation since the original Elite, that technology like the ECM is reversed-engineered Thargoid tech. Humans are a highly adaptable species; whilst the Thargoids might give us a whipping the first time round; once we've captured a few a ships and torn their technology apart; it shouldn't take long for some advanced weaponry to show up; especially when faced with the possibility of extinction.

 

[metascrawl]

[Sarcasm]Greetings Commanders!

We here at Frontier Developments have heard your opinions and have decided to introduce a new feature.

Thargoid ships will now automatically self destruct the moment your shields drop below 90%.

Will will of course continue to monitor the situation and may raise this threshold based on player feedback. [/sarcasm]

Right on!

Lol, did that really need sarcasm tags?

EDIT: Okay, missed the post above. Still seems entirely unnecessary to add them to me, but whatever.

 

[S3B4ST13N]

Thought I'd share this; if it hasn't been done yet.

[video=youtube;F5lDM5HSqQM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5lDM5HSqQM[/video]

 

[Alexander the Grape]

I really hope that our weapons are incredibly ineffective against them, and we immediately assume that we need to invent new tech to defeat them. A shiny new CG comes up, we achieve it ahead of schedule, and eagerly await our new modules...

And then nothing happens. The organisers ran off with the money to the other end of the galaxy as they discovered that it was impossible.

We start losing stations, planets, whole regions of space. We're put under genuine threat of extinction. We would have to develop not new weapons, but new tactics and strategies to fight a war of attrition with our peashooters. Kamikaze attacks, ambushes, hostage taking, terrorism and destruction of their infrastructure.

 

[Leadfoot]

Lave Radio the other week commented that a source at Lavecon had indicated that Thargoid ships will be able to 2 shot kill any A rated human vessel.

Hence its likely that it will become very dangerous to hang around that UA bubble without a suitably modified ship.

I like to think of it as a bit like Babylon 5 whereby if you saw a Shadow battlecrab it was the last thing you ever saw, as they didnt miss and a single shot was basically an instant kill.

I never played the original Elite from the 1980's so I have no past experience with them but I keep seeing the occasional thread running "Where are they? We want them? They were dangerous! They made our blood freeze because we never knew if we'd survive the encounter."

Well, if this is the case (as described above), be careful what you've all been wishing for. 3rd Quarter 2017 is not that far away. I'll be patient.

And for those of you who've been begging for them to be added in, I hope they're never nerfed. Not being mean to anyone; I just hope the Mistress of the Minions gave you all what you originally wanted.

I'm hoping for large-scale organised CG's, where players musty invade Thargoid installations around the outskirts of the bubble; scanning ships, collecting materials and data and bringing them back to a station nearby builds up the CG requirements.

The level of Tier completed before the end of the CG determines what technologies humanity is able to reverse-engineer and start selling.
--- snip ---

Repped for great ideas. Thank you. Hope they do this.

 

[Andrej]

Then you're the exception, because during that event, outside of the "super-weapons" bug, the biggest complaint I recall on the forums was that the AI was too hard; and myself and others tried to help people get better with advice, but they'd rather have the AI nerfed, than actually learn to fly better.

No, his not. I completely agree with him. Sorry, but 2.1 Super-AI bots a myth, it based on bugged engineering weapon, without it they was only annoying, not dangerous.

 

[S3B4ST13N]

No, his not. I completely agree with him. Sorry, but 2.1 Super-AI bots a myth, it based on bugged engineering weapon, without it they was only annoying, not dangerous.

I'm not going to argue that the world is round, regardless of how hard you try to convince me it's flat; so whatever helps you sleep at night dude.